Collaboration Between Child Protection and Domestic and Family Violence: A Case File Review

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Carmela Bastian ◽  
Sarah Wendt
Author(s):  
Sarah Wendt ◽  
Carmela Bastian ◽  
Michelle Jones

Abstract Collaboration across child protection and domestic and family violence (DFV) sectors have long been sought despite the competing priorities found in these practice fields. This article describes a research partnership that aimed to explore the competing priorities by focusing on how workers interact across child protection and DFV specialist agencies. Using a Living Lab Approach, enabled twelve focus groups with child protection and DFV social workers (n = 100). Thematic analysis was conducted, and it was found that diverse understandings of DFV created tensions when trying to form collaborations. These tensions were often amplified when other intersecting issues were present in family lives such as drug and alcohol and mental health problems. Understandings of Aboriginal cultural safety, and religious and culture impacts for cultural and linguistically diverse families were unintentionally sidelined. However, practitioners also formed common understandings of opportunities to progress and sustain collaboration across the sectors. The Living Lab Approach facilitated the development of a policy and practice guide for child protection to support future work. This has implications for social work practice because the Living Lab Approach enabled a call for a consistent approach to DFV that should be gender sensitive, trauma informed and culturally safe, and collaboration at practitioner, team and organisational levels.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Nixon

Drawing on data collected as part of a qualitative study on parent abuse, this article explores how child to parent violence is constructed by professionals working within the three related domains of youth justice, domestic violence and child protection. The article, a discussion piece, charts the continuities and contradictions contained within practitioners’ understandings of this form of family violence, focusing on how the problem emerges, the causal explanations employed and their impact on practice responses.


2021 ◽  
pp. 146801732110285
Author(s):  
Emma Gatfield ◽  
Patrick O’Leary ◽  
Silke Meyer ◽  
Kathleen Baird

Summary Domestic and family violence remains a significant challenge to family wellbeing. The risk of serious harm from domestic and family violence is disproportionally carried by women and children, yet often the complex reality of family life means that many families have ongoing contact with their abusers. Responses to this problem are frequently siloed across child protection and specialist domestic violence services, leading to a lack of holistic intervention. More recently, there has been increased attention on addressing the role and behavior of abusive fathers, especially where fathers remain in families or have ongoing contact postseparation through coparenting. This paper offers a systemic approach for understanding and addressing such amilies. Findings An integrated theoretical framework is proposed, which draws together key tenets of feminism, family violence, and intersectional theories within a systems-oriented model. It frames families, inclusive of fathers, within their eco-social contexts, highlighting factors that exacerbate domestic and family violence, and those that increase family safety, which has strong applications for social work practice. Applications An integrated theoretical framework offers an approach for social workers for understanding domestic and family violence in a broad-based and holistic manner, and for developing coordinated family focused interventions while concurrently addressing related child welfare concerns and family safety. A range of considerations for case management of families are explored, which, while relevant to most intact families or those who have continuing contact with perpetrators, holds particular relevance for marginalized families that present with complex needs and experiences of disadvantage.


Author(s):  
Carlene Firmin ◽  
Jenny Lloyd ◽  
Joanne Walker ◽  
Rachael Owens

In 2018, England’s safeguarding guidelines were amended to explicitly recognise a need for child protection responses to extra-familial harms. This article explores the feasibility of these amendments, using quantitative and qualitative analysis of case-file data, as well as reflective workshops, from five children’s social care services in England and Wales, in the context of wider policy and practice frameworks that guide the delivery of child protection systems and responses to harm beyond families. Green shoots of contextual social work practice were evident in the data set. However, variance within and across participating services raises questions about whether contextual social work responses to extra-familial harm are sustainable in child protection systems dominated by a focus on parental responsibility. Opportunities to use contextual responses to extra-familial harm as a gateway to reform individualised child protection practices more broadly are also discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 120 ◽  
pp. 105685
Author(s):  
Jenna Meiksans ◽  
Stewart McDougall ◽  
Fiona Arney ◽  
Rosemaria Flaherty ◽  
Alwin Chong ◽  
...  

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svein Arild Vis ◽  
Camilla Lauritzen ◽  
Øivin Christiansen ◽  
Charlotte Reedtz

Background: Parental mental health problems is a common source of concern reported to child welfare and protection services (CWPS). In this study we explored to what extent the child was invited to participate in the investigation process. We aimed to study: (a) what was the current practice in the child protection service in Norway when the CWPS received a report of concern about children whose parents were affected by mental health problems or substance abuse, (b) to what extent were children involved and consulted, (c) which factors predicted the decision to involve the children, and (d) in cases in which conversations with children were conducted: what was the main content of the conversations.Method: The study was a cross-sectional case file study (N = 1,123). Data were collected retrospectively from case records in 16 different child protection agencies. The cases were randomly drawn from all referrals registered in the participating agencies. Differences in how investigations were conducted in cases with and without concerns about parental mental health were analyzed using t-tests and chi-square testes. Predictors of child involvement in cases with parental mental health problems (N = 324) were estimated by logistic regression analyses.Results: When the referral to the CWPS contained concerns about parental mental health, there were more consultations with parents, more frequent home visits and the investigation took longer to conclude. The children, however, were less likely to be involved. Children in such cases were consulted in 47.5% of cases. Predictors for involving the children in those cases were child age, concern about the child's emotional problems and if the child was known from previous referrals.Conclusion: In Norwegian child protection investigations, in which there were concerns about the parent's mental health, conversations with children were conducted to a significantly lower degree compared to cases where the child's problem was the main concern. In such cases, the CWPS workers have to overcome a threshold before they consult with the child. The threshold decreases with child age and when case worker already knows the child.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 610
Author(s):  
Isabel Reig Fabado

Resumen: Cada vez resulta más habitual la concurrencia de violencia doméstica o familiar en los supuestos de sustracción internacional de menores, en los que la retención o el traslado ilícito del menor se utiliza como una vía de alejamiento. El sistema de retorno inmediato del menor del Convenio de la Haya de 1980 prevé esta circunstancia bajo la excepción de grave riesgo del artículo 13.1.b), en un marco regulador poliédrico, que se completa con el Reglamento 2201/2003, Bruselas II bis –para los traslados intracomunitarios– y con las medidas de protección previstas en el Convenio de la Haya de 1996 –entre los Estados parte– y el procedimiento del Capítulo IV bis de la LEC española. Los problemas en la aplicación práctica y la apreciación del interés superior del menor se revelan especialmente polémicos en estos supuestos, sobre todo por lo que respecta a las ejecutorias.Palabras clave: sustracción internacional de menores, violencia doméstica o familiar, retorno seguro, carácter ejecutorio, medidas de protección del menor, derecho de audiencia del menor.Abstract: The occurrence of domestic or family violence in cases of international child abduction is increasingly common, in which the detention or illegal transfer of the child is used as a means of alienation. The system of immediate return of the child of the Hague Convention of 1980 provides for this circumstance with the exception of grave risk of harm of article 13(1)(b), in a polyhedral regulatory framework, which is completed by Regulation 2201/2003, Brussels IIa –for intra-EU cases– and with the protection measures provided for in the Hague Convention of 1996 -between the States Parties- and the procedure of Chapter IV bis of the Spanish Civil Prosecution Law. Problems in the practical application and appreciation of the best interests of the child are particularly controversial in these cases.Keywords: international child abduction, domestic or family violence, safe return, enforceability, child protection measures, right of a child to be heard.


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